Without the robe to identify him as the intruder, Rom made his way unnoticed to the service elevator and up to the attic as Neah had instructed. The studios in the attic were divided by the upper level’s unfinished wood framing, and he could pass easily from one to the next. Paintings and sculpture were littered everywhere, a veritable wealth of art. It was all fine stuff, proficient to the point of mathematical perfection, no doubt created by the best artisans the Citadel could afford. It was the artwork in the third studio that quickened his heart. These were not new works. In fact, they appeared ancient, in which case they should have been destroyed at Null Year. But here they remained, in various stages of repair and restoration. He shifted Neah’s cloak in his hands and touched one of them, marveling at the texture of the paint, at the faces twisted in torture and in ecstasy peering out from the canvas. If these were from the Age of Chaos, they were forbidden. And yet here they were in the Citadel itself.
